Hosting a Super Bowl Now Includes Playing A Home Game in London

According to the Sports Business Journal, NFL owners made a vote last week that will require Super Bowl host teams to play a home game in London.

Under the new rule, teams will be required to give up one home game over a five-year period.

The NFL often required Super Bowl host cities to meet certain specific demands. In the past these have included”

• Agree to let the league control “100 percent of the revenues from all ticket sales” including “ticket sales in all suites.”
• Exclusive, cost-free use of 35,000 parking spaces for the game.
• Hotels the host the teams must agree to televise the NFL Network for one year leading up to the Super Bowl.

If this rules goes into affect this year, it would mean that Super Bowl 50 hosts, the San Francisco 49ers, would have to play a London ‘home’ game sometime over the next five years. However, it is more likely that the London game rule won’t affect any team or city until the next Super Bowl is awarded.

And in another London related move , the NFL is giving the “home” team in London a little financial incentive. Any team willing to host a game in England will get paid an additional $1 million on top of the lost revenues that teams currently get.

There are three games in London for 2014. The Oakland Raiders played hosted to the Miami Dolphins a few weeks ago. The Atlanta Falcons host the Detroit Lions in Week 8 and the Jacksonville Jaguars host the Dallas Cowboys in Week 10.